Chapter Two
At times like this, my conflicting human nature is most prominent.
Sometimes I trouble over the shortage of food or the lack of sunlight in the cold and lugubrious basement of the castle that once existed there. But other times I am thankful for the harsh environment that forced me to my limits or even anything beyond that.
Due to the happenings 10 years ago I had become affixed to the idea of an 'Artificial Human'; and helplessly obsessed with the gears, bolts, nuts and metal pieces that had caused my family's death. My father had said that we were on fantastic terms with the other Houses; Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs.
But I didn't believe it, not for a moment, after the fire occurred.
I think that God was cruel for leaving only me behind, but I'm also thankful that I'm alive.
I can't quite grasp what happened exactly on that night, except for that there was a lot of heat, smoke, and obviously the smell of metal. I woke up to the sound of the maids and servants in the castle screaming and yelling, and had then made my way through the lurid bights of flames and fallen ceiling beams. I saw my mum and my dad, lying on their sides in a heap, not moving and with no rise and fall of their chest. Then I looked at my big brother who was only two years older than I was.
The eight year-old at that time tugged at my night dress with sordid skinny fingers smudged with black, and said '...run' in a weak voice. After that my memory was a complete mess.
I recall pressing my ear to his chest and hearing his heart pump slower and slower, like an old engine that has run out of gas. The beams then crashed on his arms and his legs, and the glassy emerald orbs of his eyes stared, detached, at my face. I feel like he had tried to smile and comfort his sister but his nerves were no longer functioning.
But he knew that his little sister was braver than he was. After all, she was the one who chased away the bullies, the one who comforted him when he dropped a screwdriver on his big toe and the one who patted his head when he was too scared of the dark to sleep.
So I had pulled out my brother's favourite pocket knife from his belt and carved into his chest. It was nothing like that pieces of metal they dug through day and night. It was soft like cotton and much more delicate and fragile.
The rest of the night was calmed by the rain, while I focused on connecting his heart to the new model of 'Puppet'. The procedure was agonising but my mind had felt strangely numb. I think I cried, but then again I wasn't quite sure if it were rain or tears pouring down my cheeks. I remember whispering 'thank you' over and over again, for the painfully long lessons my father had forced upon us as the 'House of Spades' heirs, the countless books I had read on the human body in the old library, and the thick layers of callous on my fingers from assembling 'Puppets'.
I was glad to be alive.
So I thought about the metal of the other puppets that my mother and father poured their life, tears, blood and their very essences into, rotting and rusting away in the rain, and named the 'Puppet' Rusty.
The first 'Puppet' in the world to have a human heart.
